Active Weekend

Well, this was certainly an active weekend. Saturday morning Valerie and I did our monthly 5K. This month’s event was held in conjunction with the Arlington County Fair and the course was primarily several laps around the fairgrounds. We both expected a fairly easy course, since the race was held at 8 AM and the weather forecast didn’t call for extreme heat. Unfortunately, the morning was humid and the temperature climbed quickly as the sun rose in the sky, so it would up being a slow, sticky slog with some significant hills. Still, as I walked from the car to the packet pick-up I enjoyed the unusual sight of people watering livestock in the TJ Center parking lot. Cows at TJ. Cool.

Valerie crossing the finish line

Sunday morning we were out the door early again, this time to go paddle boarding with Ted at Key Bridge Boathouse (nee Jack’s). My limited experience with paddleboards has taught me that they’re more stable than they seem, and so one of the big considerations is the mental game of getting over your feelings of wobbliness. At first it looked like Valerie wasn’t going to make that mental leap and was going to be stuck just sitting on the board, but she pushed through, stood up on the board, and did a really good job! By the end of the trip she was moving at a pretty good pace and even said she’d do it again. Ted, of course, showed off his mad SUP skills..

Huh. Who'd have thunk it?

Mother and child reunion

Sunday afternoon I had signed up to go on a bike ride with the NOVA Casual Bike Meetup Group; however, that ride got cancelled at the last minute. It’s a good thing I checked my email since I could easily have missed the cancellation and shown up and waited at the Shirlington departure point. Instead I just rode by myself. Home, up over Chain Bridge, down the C&O towpath and Captial Crescent into Georgetown, followed the river down, crossed back into Virginia over Memorial Bridge, connected to the Mt. Vernon Trail by scurrying across the GW Parkway like Frogger with a bicycle (there must be a better way to do this!), then up to Rosslyn and out the Custis Trail to home.